April 26, 2006

The "November" Matrix: Art, Theory, Criticism, Palaver

"NOVEMBER" SKEWERS CRITICS
Is the influential October magazine, the flagship journal of art theory, a spent force? The editors of the newly released November
certainly seem to think so. The 46-page inaugural issue of the parody
mag offers a savage send-up of the widely copied, jargon-heavy style of
October, via, among other things, contributions from "Lukács G.C. Hechnoh" (an analogue of neo-Marxist critic and frequent Artforum contributor Benjamin H.D. Buchloh),
who provides a text sternly condemning "Ikea’s Historic Amnesia," and
an essay by "Rosamund Kauffmann" titled "A Picturesque Stroll around
Jeff Koons’ Porcelain Pink Panther," employing the fragmentary,
French-interspersed style of Rosalind Krauss. The publication concludes with Hechnoh, Kauffmann and stand-ins for fellow October heavys Yve-Alain Bois ("Jean-Luc Salive") and Hal Foster ("Chip Chapman") engaged in a roundtable discussion on the perks that roundtables afford neo-Marxist intellectuals.

Responding to an inquiry from Artnet News about where fans might pick up the spoof, the editors of November
wrote that, "The matrix of NOVEMBER's current distribution is
constructed largely from the result of aleatory scatterings and
(re)inscribed focus groups in an attempt to maintain the dialectical
tension between preserving a revolutionary aura of objecthood in this
age of debased mechanical inauthenticity and self-reflexively complete
the text's projected feedback loop by having others recognize our own
editorial subjectivity." They did, however, suggest that parties
interested in obtaining a copy could write eleventhmonth@gmail.com

Comments

"NOVEMBER" SKEWERS CRITICS
Is the influential October magazine, the flagship journal of art theory, a spent force? The editors of the newly released November
certainly seem to think so. The 46-page inaugural issue of the parody
mag offers a savage send-up of the widely copied, jargon-heavy style of
October, via, among other things, contributions from "Lukács G.C. Hechnoh" (an analogue of neo-Marxist critic and frequent Artforum contributor Benjamin H.D. Buchloh),
who provides a text sternly condemning "Ikea’s Historic Amnesia," and
an essay by "Rosamund Kauffmann" titled "A Picturesque Stroll around
Jeff Koons’ Porcelain Pink Panther," employing the fragmentary,
French-interspersed style of Rosalind Krauss. The publication concludes with Hechnoh, Kauffmann and stand-ins for fellow October heavys Yve-Alain Bois ("Jean-Luc Salive") and Hal Foster ("Chip Chapman") engaged in a roundtable discussion on the perks that roundtables afford neo-Marxist intellectuals.

Responding to an inquiry from Artnet News about where fans might pick up the spoof, the editors of November
wrote that, "The matrix of NOVEMBER's current distribution is
constructed largely from the result of aleatory scatterings and
(re)inscribed focus groups in an attempt to maintain the dialectical
tension between preserving a revolutionary aura of objecthood in this
age of debased mechanical inauthenticity and self-reflexively complete
the text's projected feedback loop by having others recognize our own
editorial subjectivity." They did, however, suggest that parties
interested in obtaining a copy could write eleventhmonth@gmail.com